


raise your glass (if you are wrong in all the right ways)

by misura



Category: Deadwood
Genre: Christmas Eve, Drinking & Talking, M/M, No Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al and Jack have a drink on Christmas Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	raise your glass (if you are wrong in all the right ways)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



> sorry, I had no idea what rating to put on this - if you replaced the word 'fucking' by, say, 'cute', 90% of this would probably be rated G, but, you know, it's Deadwood and I wanted to at least _try_ to get the voices right ^^

"Having seen corpses, lain in the fucking grave for two weeks and yet displaying more life than I see before me, this very moment and the past few besides, I see no call to keep the door open."

Dan looked resigned, Johnny, confused. The usual state of affairs, in other words.

"We're closed," Al said, by way of making his wishes redundantly clear.

"Because of Christmas?" Johnny, not Dan. One had to wonder, from time to time, upon how many occasions his parents had seen fit to refrain from strangling him or at the very least making it clear that the asking of dumb questions might impede a man's prospects.

Perhaps they had been deaf; as likely an explanation as any, and proof of a divine sense of irony if Al had ever seen one.

"Assuming for a moment that you are being concise rather than stupid, meaning your actual question has less to do with the closing and more to do with my first remark, I shall respond by asking what fucking difference it makes what day it is. Are we to believe that all men have suddenly found religion? That it is their newfound but none the less devout belief in purity that keeps them home?"

"More likely it's just the weather," Dan said, but _he_ , at least, had risen to follow Al's instructions, which left Al inclined to regard him more kindly than Johnny, who still sat.

"Possible, possible, or maybe every man's dick has fallen off over night and they are all of them now looking for them to reattach. Is that a theory that fucking pleases you, Johnny? By all means, don't get up on my account; it's not as if I'm paying you to work here, is it?"

"I uh. Mine's fine, or was, last time I checked, anyway." Johnny squirmed.

Al saw no reason to take pity. "What possible interest the current state of your dick might be to me, I am sure I do not fucking know. Do you hear anyone else providing me with such information?"

"I'm just saying, is all," Johnny said, but he seemed to have gotten the hint, applied via proverbial sledgehammer, that Dan might want a hand. Which Dan didn't, anymore, but so it went.

"Your insecurity in the matter is noted, I am sure." Dan jerked his head in that way that meant someone was coming - a customer at last, and too fucking late. "Who is it?"

"Langrishe," Dan said, already moving out of the way, thereby proving his intelligence had not suffered from being beaten nearly to death; if anything, it had improved, which Al had decided to find pleasing rather than worrying.

"Indeed it is, young man." Jack swept into the room. His clothes showed the weather had not markably improved. "Good evening, all. Closed already, on this most festive of holidays?"

"Those who celebrate appear to have chosen to do it elsewhere, and welcome they are to it," Al said.

Johnny looked like he might wish to speak again, unwisely. Al nodded curtly at Dan, in a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as a clear instruction to see to it that Johnny kept his dubious theories to himself for a while.

Dan looked about as pleased as any man might look, knowing himself to be in the company of someone anxious to check the contents of their pants.

"Will you come upstairs, have a drink?"

Jack's hesitation was less lengthy than Al would have expected, knowing Jack as a devout celebrant, if not a devout Christian by the common meaning of the word. "Glad to."

"Should I warn for the lack of frills and decoration?" Al asked, allowing Jack to precede him on the stairs. "The halls of your theater being, as I heard it, all but gilded."

"A few decked halls do a more cheerful spirit of Christmas make, but no, I well know your opinion on such matters. I promise you that I will not be shocked."

"Not shocked, he says, implying disappointment in his tone, disillusionment in his expression."

Al opened the door to his office, perusing his memory for the current location of his better liquor.

Jack smiled. It came easily to him, smiling - always had. Al had never envied him for it. Hard to take smilers seriously; easy to mistake them for friendly folk, harmless and possessed of an innocence bordering on naivety. It took a ruthless man to profit from such a smile, and a clever one to turn it to his advantage, and neither ruthless men nor clever ones had any need to be smilers, too.

"I well remember the last Christmas we spent together," Jack sat, sitting down in the chair Al waved him over to while retrieving a bottle and two small glasses. "Way back when, in Virginia City. Ah, what days those were."

"I must confess the memory eludes me entirely." Al poured.

"Perhaps it will come back to you as the evening progresses." Jack's smile didn't bother calling him a liar, and a poor one besides, which was just as well.

To quarrel on Christmas Eve, of all nights, would no doubt be unlucky and an ill omen for the coming year. "My mind's clarity increasing the more alcohol passes my lips? Greater fucking nonsense, I have not yet heard today, although if you like, we might ask Johnny how his dick currently fares."

"A question of a somewhat intimate and personal nature, it would seem." Jack raised his glass.

"Drink to that? Why not?" They both drank; Al refilled their glasses. "As good a reason as any, and better than some. We were both younger, back in Virginia City."

"Younger and, by extension, more foolish?" Jack smiled again. "We did not make out so poorly, I think."

"Reminiscing on days not so long gone that they have faded from memory just yet, I might mistake you for an old man, and me considered one in the fucking bargain as well."

"Young man, I would not dream of calling you 'old'. It would be an intolerable insult."

Al sniffed. "To your own vanity, no doubt. Comes the day when I am an old man, you shall be a fucking ancient. That, or long dead and buried."

"Ah. Perhaps some small vanity plays a part in it, yes. You still have plans, then? Perhaps even dreams?"

Jack had had dreams of theaters and actors and plays. Plans, too, though, and not so poorly thought out as to be impractical, so Al allowed him his sentimentality.

It could be a useful thing, sentimentality. In others, more often than in oneself, and in one's enemies more readily than in one's friends. Still, you show a man a tool, and a smart man will find a way to use that tool. (An idiot would break it. As so recently demonstrated by a certain gentleman.)

"Plans I have plenty. Means, some. Obstacles, many."

"And then they say things do change, over time." Jack sighed and shook his head.

"Change is a many-splendored thing and double-edged besides. Overrated, I believe the term that I would wish to apply may be. Easily abused or turned fucking askew."

"To say you sound old would give offense, which I am loathe to do. Shall I call you 'wise', instead?"

" 'Wise', I'll take, and thank you for it kindly. Another?"

"My tolerance for these things has, it shames me to say, far from increased," Jack said, readily enough offering his glass nevertheless. "Some lean months, alas."

Al topped off his own glass as well. "Who of us hasn't had those? No, don't tell me a fucking thing about them right now, I do not want to know. Some cheerful subject, if you please. We're celebrating, are we not? The birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and merrily we shall celebrate His coming into this world. Amen."

"At heart, still a heathen."

"As He treats me, so I shall treat Him, and a cordial enough relationship He and I have. I don't ask Him for any favors, and in return, He does me none. That makes me a fucking heathen, I have no quarrel with the term, provided it is used kindly and with no ill intent."

"I hesitate to say he's never done a fucking thing for me. My upbringing, you know." Jack gestured. "It chains a man to certain convictions, certain beliefs."

"Didn't keep you out of the theater business."

Jack shrugged. "It's a living, a calling and a dream. Not quite in that order, perhaps."

"So I imagine. Shall I open a new bottle, or have you had enough?"

"Yes to both, in all honesty."

Al hesitated for a moment, torn between the certainty that poor quality liquor would, at this point, go down as easily as high-quality, and his own convictions and beliefs which had come to him, not via his upbringing, but through a life lived with few friends and fewer opportunities to let his guard down without fearing the consequences.

"Speaking of which, would you believe it: I just fucking remembered what happened in Virginia City. Shall we try for a repeat performance, do you think?"

Jack's eyes were quite bright - alcohol did that to a man. "I promise you I have no thoughts on the matter whatsoever."

Al opened up another bottle of the expensive good stuff. "Still a poor fucking liar, Jack."

"I am in the theater business, after all," Jack said good-naturedly, holding out his glass once more.

"Poor, was the word I used, and that was a kindness offered to a friend. Speaking plainly now, how long has it been since someone other than yourself touched your dick, let alone did other things with it?"

"I believe it may have been some young lady - a professional, of course. Some two months past?"

"And look at you, still fucking aglow with joy at the memory."

"One makes do," Jack said. "One accepts one's lot in life, and finds pleasure in other things, relationships of a less carnal nature. I am not so young that my needs overwhelm my reason. When the need does arise, I quench it in much the same way others who are not so inclined quench theirs."

"Well, thank God you're not a fucking sentimentalist."

"I leave that to others, and gladly so. Incidentally, this is some very good liquor."

"Seeing as how it is mine, I shall take that as a compliment and thank you for it, rather than decry you for someone seeking to change the subject."

"Alcohol always did make you a trifle maudlin, young man. Have no fear, I shan't tell anyone else."

"Good. Having few friends, it would rather grieve me to lose one to stupidity."

They drank again, before Al rose and went to ensure the door was closed, and securely so.


End file.
